Petronas begins gas production in Malaysia’s Kasawari field

The Kasawari offshore field in the Malaysian state of Sarawak has started producing natural gas at an initial flow rate of 200 million standard cubic feet per day (MMscfd), operator Petroliam Nasional Bhd. said on Wednesday.

Production is intended for both the domestic market and export, with the target being gas sales of 545 million cubic feet per day. Kasawari will supply feed gas to the Petronas LNG Complex in the coastal town of Bintulu.

The field, discovered in 2011 about 200 kilometers off the coast of Sarawak, contains about 10 trillion cubic feet of gas. Infrastructure includes a central processing platform, a flare platform and a well platform connected to the central processing plant by bridges, a riser platform and a pipeline. For the domestic part of the supply, the 81-kilometer carbon steel pipeline transports gas from Kasawari to the riser platform for delivery in Bintulu, Petronas said.

Petronas holds a 90 percent stake through its subsidiary Petronas Carigali Sdn. Bhd. Exploration and Production Malaysia Venture holds the remaining 10 percent.

“Kasawari is a testament to our local capabilities in executing large-scale projects,” said Bacho Pilong, senior vice president at Malaysia Petroleum Management (MPM), in a Petronas statement. MPM is the Southeast Asian country’s upstream management body under Petronas.

“This achievement, which involved more than 450 local subcontractors and suppliers, was achieved in 26.6 million working hours,” said Bacho.

Kasawari is the third hydrocarbon project to come into production in Malaysia this year.

Last month, Petronas announced the commissioning of the Jerun gas field, also on the Malaysian side of Borneo island. The project, located 160 kilometers off the coast of Sarawak, is expected to produce 550 million cubic feet per day.

Sapura OMV Upstream (Sarawak) Inc., which holds a 40 percent stake as operator, discovered the Block SK408 field in 2016. Petronas Carigali and Sarawak Shell Bhd. each own 30 percent.

TotalEnergies SE is close to taking over the SK408 block. At the beginning of the year, the French energy giant announced that it had reached agreements with the owners of SapuraOMV to take over the joint venture. The Malaysian energy group Sapura Energy Bhd. and the Austrian state-supported OMV AG are each selling their 50 percent stake in SapuraOMV.

TotalEnergies will pay OMV $903 million, including a $350 million loan OMV had provided to SapuraOMV, TotalEnergies said in a press release on January 31.

TotalEnergies later announced on April 22 that it would also buy the remaining half of Sapura Energy for $530 million.

In the first quarter of 2024, Malaysia produced over two million barrels of oil equivalent per day (MMboepd), according to Petronas’ latest quarterly financial report dated May 31. According to the report, Petronas commissioned an unspecified project in Malaysia during the period. The company’s total production, including shares from foreign assets, was 2.6 MMboepd for the January-March quarter.

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